Shattered
by colorguardbookworm
Summary: Bella's mom left her when she was a baby. Seventeen years later Bella is sort of depressed and messed up. When her wealthy dad sends her to go live with her mother, who now is remarried and has two other kids, can Bella get better? AH, BxE
1. Chapter 1

"Honey, it's time for a change." My dad said tenderly, as if he really knew what was going on with me. He didn't know, he was just really good at pretending. But as good of an actor that he was, he still couldn't help me.

My dad had spent the last three yeas trying to help me. He had sent me to all of the best therapists, psychologists, and shrinks that money could buy. He had plenty of that, thanks to him owning a fortune 500 company.

All of the people who were paid to get inside of your head and mess around with it always asked me the same thing. "What made you this way?' and of course the famous "and how do you feel about that' ploy. I always gave them the truth; that I was allergic to ice cream sprinkles, and the moment that they hit my stomach I barfed. Several doctors could verify that claim. And that I could hold sprinkles longer than my mother ever held me.

We lived in a small town that was thirty-five miles from Boston, Massachusetts. Dad had to travel there everyday for his job. Thanks to that we lived in a 30 thousand square foot house that I didn't even want to know how many bedrooms it had. I owned two cars, a BMW M3 and a Porsche Boxster, my dad owned a total of ten cars, and I could tell you that there weren't any Hondas in that pile.

I went to an elite school a few towns away. It was the type of school where you were laughed at if you didn't get into the Ivies and there were Porsches and Mercedes in the student lot, and after every break people came back with bigger breasts and new noses.

Walking into school was like walking into a catalog, into a room full of beautiful people with perfect strait, white teeth. Everybody's favorite department stores were Barney's New York and Bergdorf Goodman or Bloomingdales. My favorite was Bergdorf Goodman for clothes and shoes and such. It was Bloomingdales for handbags and things like that.

My dad and I were always at every charity event out there simply because it looked good. I honestly didn't really care about the starving orphans in Somalia. I may have a few years ago when I wasn't so screwed up.

I used to be a sweet caring girl who was going to change the world for the better somehow. But then He happened. I wasn't talking about God.

I was happy. I was the only person who could beat the teachers at school at debate. I read a ton of books. If someone messed with my friends they weren't going to do it again after they saw me. I was one of those kids who you just knew was going to be famous someday and one of those that you knew was going to succeed and change the world for the better somehow in their lifetime.

So my dad and I were always at town hall unravelings and store chain openings. We were both always invited to the Inauguration ceremonies because daddy dearest always donated at least $500,000 dollars to president's campaigns. I always called the President-Elects by their first names. Their phone numbers were _always_ on my dad's speed dial. God forbid they weren't.

"Honey, we can't figure out how to make you better or what even made you this way. You have to go. We've go to get you away from here. This is the place where it all started. You've got to go." I just sat and glared.

"Bella Marie Swan, when your mother was here we named you Bella Marie because we knew that your laugh was going to sound like bells and that you were going to accomplish great things in your life like your grandmother. We didn't know how, but we knew that you were going to." I burst.

"And so you've decided to send me to the person who decided to abandon me when I was less than a month old! You don't know how it feels to have to move three thousand miles away and go live with a woman who I haven't seen in seventeen years! The 'woman'" I said disgusted, "who left me for something that she thought was better!" I was yelling at the top of my voice and I had stood up.

"You don't know what it feels like to not be enough to tie your mother's life to yours." I added softly. I wasn't screaming anymore. My head was turned down, my eyes downcast. My hair had fallen into my face. I looked up slowly to see my affluent father's reaction. I sat back down.

"I know Belly, I know that I won't ever be able to feel your pain, but I don't think that not having a mother figure in your life is the only thing that's made you unwell." He added in an even softer tone than me.

"It's not Daddy. It's far from it, but you'll do a great job in getting that out of me."

"It will come out of you. Not from me, I know. Maybe someday you'll forgive me."

"Daddy, it's not your fault. I have nothing to forgive you for."

A half of an hour later I was already packing for my big move. My suitcases were Louis Vuitton of course.

All that I knew about my mother now was that she had gotten in touch with my father about a month before that day because apparently she wanted to meet me and have a bigger part in my life. She had married a guy who was a famous baseball player and that she lived on the west coast in San Clemente, CA. They made a ton of money, about as much as my dad, and they had two other kids. They were both adopted and they had the same age as me. They were in the same grade.

When I got to the Golden State I was going to the same elite private school that Alice and Emmet, her kids, went to.

I had absolutely no other information.

That night after I went to sleep and I had packed all I could I had a dream where I was falling and falling into an abyss. You couldn't see the bottom because it was so far down that it was black. And while there were bridges in places I couldn't land on them because I was freefalling, and I couldn't control where I was going. Nobody bothered to save me, so I just fell into the unknown darkness, unaware of what was going to await me at the bottom.

So Bella's BMW and her Porsche and all of her Louis Vuitton suitcases are posted on my profile! Review please!


	2. Chapter 2

I had flown the 3000 mile trip from Logan International Airport to LAX tons of times before that day, but I didn't remember ever having been that nervous. I didn't remember feeling so squished in a first class seat. I didn't remember having to remind myself to breathe deeply that many times.

I didn't remember sitting up so strait in the seat because I was so nervous. I didn't remember trying to force myself to fall asleep so that I would forget the sheer absolute horror that was encircling me.

I didn't ever remember ever thinking so much about what somebody was going to think of me. I didn't know if it was because I was going to meet somebody who I was going to live with for another year until I went to college, or if it was because I was meeting people who were technically in my family and I just hadn't ever met them. Either way, I was utterly terrified.

My hands were sweating; I wiped them on my Diane von Furstenburg that was from Bergdorf Goodman and cost $365. That was one of my cheapest articles of clothing. My $3,925 diamond and platinum ring from Tiffany's was falling off from the extra moisture.

The flight attendant finally announced that we were about to land and asked us to put our seats up and to put our trays in the upright and locked positions. I didn't have to bother with either, the chair was already upright from my terror and I was so sick from the butterflies that I didn't eat or drink anything in the five and a half hours that I was on the plane.

A half of an hour later the plane landed. I waited for the hustling and bustling crowd to pass me before I gathered my belongings. I grabbed my Louis Vuitton laptop bag that contained my Macbook Pro and began to walk through the gate into the terminal.

If you've ever been to LAX you know that trying to find somebody is incredibly difficult. When you have no idea who you're looking for, it's a needle in the haystack.

I did know though that by the time that I grabbed all of my bags most of the people on the same plane as me would have cleared out because I had so many more bags than they did. How hard was it to find a seventeen year old girl wearing a navy blue dress?

I shipped most of my furniture, but I refused to ship six Louis Vuitton bags. I wasn't going to happen.

When most people cleared out and I had grabbed all of my bags, one family was left standing at the baggage claim. Since Daddy told me that my mother and her replacement husband only had two replacement kids I didn't know if that family was the one I was looking for, because they had two adults and five children.

One girl from the family of seven came bounding over to me as I grabbed the last bag from the assembly line. "Are you Bella?" She asked in a cheerful tone. This was going to be hell. So they're beautiful and they're happy.

"Yes. I'm Bella." I told her.

"I thought so. I'm Alice, your new half-sister. Well, I suppose I've been your sister for a while, so new to you, I guess. Is that a Dolce and Gabbana bag?" She asked me with a smile on her face. She was motioning to my purse.

"Yes. It is." I said with an almost smile on my face.

"Well, if you were smart enough to buy that I can tell that we're going to be great friends." She may have been too perky and pixie like and smiley, but I kind of liked her.

"Let me help you with those bags. Why didn't you just ship all of these? You have seven bags."

"I'm not shipping my Louis. It's not going to happen!" She just laughed at my over protectiveness. "I did ship my two cars though."

"So you'll ship two really nice cars but you won't ship 7 Louis Vuitton bags?" I thought that she was questioning my logic, but then she said, "You are a smart woman." I laughed. She grabbed a few of my luggage bags and we walked over to where my new family and a few unknown people we standing.


	3. Chapter 3

Walking the hundred yards with Alice to go meet the rest of her family (and the people who I didn't know) was a totally bizarre and abnormal experience. I was used to having stature in society. I was used to being introduced by my father to people who ran Fortune 500 companies.

I knew what to do in those situations. I knew to shake their hands and smile and pretend that I didn't notice how many face lifts the ladies had. I knew to sound fascinated at the stories that they told when they were drunk. I knew to nod my head and pretend that I was listening to the stories that they told. I knew to "respect my elders," meaning to ask thoughtful questions.

I didn't know what to do in the situation I was in.

Walking over to a totally unknown family in Christian Louboutin high heels wasn't the best idea, especially on tile. Especially when your feet had been sweating because of nervousness.

I realized this as I slipped and landed on my back. However, before I hit the ground I put my hand behind my back in an automatic response that was designed to that I wouldn't break my spine. I heard a crack as I hit the ground.

I hoped that my underwear wasn't showing. That was the only thought that I had as I hadn't been able to comprehend what happened.

Everyone who had been standing were suddenly at my side. "Bella, Bella are you alright?" They all said while they were panicking.

I felt a shooting pain in my left arm and realized that something had happened to it. I didn't know what was wrong with it though.

The most beautiful boy that I had ever seen was the closest to me and the one who I was paying the most attention to. "Hi." He said to me with a velvety voice. I said hi to him back.

I hoped that I didn't sound or look like a deer caught in the headlights when he spoke to me. I was awestruck by his magnificence.. We stared into each others eyes as everything else was hectic.

I was suddenly awakened out of my daydream by Alice's particularly loud voice asking me if I was okay. I was about to respond yes when I felt the shooting pain in my left wrist again. "Owww!" I said loudly when Alice tried to help me up by pulling on that wrist.

"Did you hurt it?" The gorgeous boy asked me as he helped me up with my right wrist.

"Yes. I think so." I told him.

"I'm Edward by the way," he told me as he shook my hand.

"Bella, we have to get you to the hospital. Carlisle will want a good look at that wrist of yours." A woman who looked like me said. I guessed that she was my mother.

"Who's Carlisle?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"Oh, sorry, I sort of skipped introductions, didn't I?" I nodded. "You know Alice, she's your half-sister, as you know. This is Emmet," she motioned to a humongous boy who was about my age. He was standing next to a gorgeous blonde girl. Alice went to stand next to a good looking blonde boy who looked like the girl.

"Hi." He said to me. I smiled at him.

"This is Rosalie, Emmet's girlfriend." She showed me the blonde girl.

"It's nice to meet you." She said to me. She seemed nice. Most people seemed nice though during first impressions.

"This is Jasper Hale. He's Rosalie's twin brother and Alice's boyfriend." He seemed quiet and just kind of smiled at me to show me that he acknowledged that I was there. He didn't seem like the talkative type. I wondered how he ended up with Alice. They were total opposites. Alice was about 4'10" and Jasper was about 6'4" and Alice was hyper, happy and cheerful. Jasper wasn't like that.

"This is Edward Cullen. His parents are Esme and Carlisle Cullen. They're friends of our family. Esme is and interior designer and Carlisle is a doctor so that's why I said that I said that Carlisle would want a look at you. This is my husband, your step-father. And I'm your mother." She took a deep breath after she said that, like she was relieved that she had gotten it all out. Like she was just a nervous as I was.

"Well, let's go going shall we." My new step-father named Phil said. Almost everybody grabbed a suitcase of mine and with that we walked out of the airport doors. We stopped by "customer service" or whatever it was to get ice for my wrist. We were in the parking structure when my mother explained the situation to me.

"So why don't you ride home with Edward and we'll split all of the bags up between the rest of the cars and you two won't have any because he'll take you strait to the hospital."

"Sure." I replied.

There really probably wasn't a reason as to why I was going with Edward. I could have just as easily gone with my mother. I had the feeling somehow that despite the fact that she left me when I was less that a month old that she really did care for me and wanted to ride in the same car as me to get to know me better. I had the feeling that she cared about my life and how she had missed so much of it.

I then realized that she had noticed my growing infatuation with Edward so she was trying to hook me up with him. I realized that it was a sacrifice on her account to have me ride with Edward.

I took my laptop bag and got in the front seat with Edward and the hour and a half drive to San Clemente began.


	4. Chapter 4

Edward and I didn't talk much on the car ride to the hospital. Of course there was the basic "how is your wrist" and him asking me if I liked classical or piano music so that he could turn his radio on without objection from me, however there wasn't even one coherent full sentence.

Well, there wasn't one until I noticed the speedometer. "Holy crap, slow down! You're going over a hundred miles an hour!" He smiled.

"I always drive this fast. I've never received a ticket, not even parking and I've never been in a car accident, not even a tiny fender bender. It's okay, your mother wouldn't have forced you to go in the same car as me if she didn't trust my driving, would she?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her in 16 years, 11 months, and 3 days. For all I know she could be a demon worshipping cereal killer who just wants to get me in her house so that I would be in a position to be her next victim." Edward laughed.

"Or, she could just be some gold digging idiotic airhead who wants something; possibly child support." I said cynically, totally contradicting what I just thought minutes before.

"Why would you think that?! Your mother loves you; she just messed up. No parent doesn't love their child, ever. Parenthood is what makes children into adults. It's what makes adults fierce, what gives them the animalistic tendencies when their child is in trouble. It's what makes mothers kill people who hurt their children. Even parents who beat their children love them, they just don't know how to express it. Bill Cosby once said 'Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home.' Your mother loves you, whether you know it or not."

I was speechless for a little while. While pondering what Edward had said though, I came up with a question that I didn't have an answer for. "What is love exactly? Define in for me, because I've never felt it, and if I have, I didn't know that that was what it was."

"What type of love?" He answered like it was a question that he had answered many times and he knew the answer to it.

"Every type. I've never felt any of them."

"Quit being such a cynic! I need specifics." He said with his beautiful voice.

" I don't care, romantic love."

"I've never felt it either. I can't give you an exact answer for that one but I can give you a guess. Romantic love," He said like he was tasting the words, feeling them roll of off his tongue. "When you hear the person's name you smile uncontrollably, you get wiggly and excited just from seeing that person; you stop breathing when they kiss you. You want to be held by them constantly; you don't know what's up and what's down. You go weak in the knees when you see their eyes." He said the words like they were the greatest words on the planet. "The person who you're with takes you to new heights that you didn't even know existed. Every fiber of your being revolves around that person. You love them."

"Sounds nice." I said like an old grouch. He looked at me like he wanted to help me. It wasn't a look of pity, which I liked. It was more of a look that said that he wanted to help me, and that he cared about me. I wasn't used to the feeling of being wanted, but it felt nice. I pretended to not notice him looking at me.

"We're here." He said as he pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. By the time I was trying to get my seatbelt undone he was already at my door, opening it for me.

"Thank you." I mumbled to him, hoping it was loud enough so that I wouldn't come off as impolite, but soft enough so that he wouldn't actually hear the words that were being said.

Edward walked me to a part of the hospital that people in the emergency room didn't have to go to or people who were being admitted. It seemed like a back route to me. He clearly came to this hospital a lot. "Edward," I heard someone call. He took me over to a good looking blonde doctor who was clearly his father. "Who do we have here?" Carlisle asked, looking at me. Edward answered for me.

"It's Bella. She slipped at the airport and fell on her wrist. I think it's broken." He said like he was the person in charge of me. Like the father who takes his daughter to the hospital, and who's really worried about them. Carlisle gently took my hand. He poked the skin where it was broken. I hissed; the spot was tender.

"It's broken alright. I'll need an x-ray though. Follow me." We complied.

We took the x-ray and he put my arm into a cast. I was glad though, because it wasn't a huge cast that went over my elbow, it went right below it.

"Edward, Sally wanted to see you. She made too many muffins again." Carlisle told Edward, laughing. He said after Edward had left the room that he was referring to a receptionist who was in her sixties and apparently adored Edward after. When he reached the door he looked back. I couldn't tell though if he was looking at Carlisle or me because we were right next to each other.

When Edward left the room Carlisle pounced.

"My son is in love with you. " He said matter-of-factly as he turned away to dip the gauze in plaster. I looked at him, startled when he turned his head back to look at me.

"He doesn't normally take such care of people. " He told me.

"What do you mean?" I said, trying to pretend that I wasn't about to freak out from being so flabbergasted at the fact that he loved me.

"In this situation he would have taken Jane Doe here and stayed until the cast was put on and what not. There would be no special glances, no special treatment. But with you, he's very protective. He keeps glancing under the pretense that he is just making sure that you're okay. I doubt that if a nuclear bomb hit right now that you would die."

I realized at that moment that I shouldn't want Edward to love me. I had only met him three hours before. It was improper for me to want someone who I had just met to love me. It went against the rule of nature.

I also realized that I was the cynical teenage girl who didn't believe in love. I did before a certain person entered my life.

I purposely didn't talk to Edward when he was driving me to my new house. I knew that I wouldn't be able to get clear sentences out of my mouth because of my newly discovered discovery.

I didn't talk to any of my new family that day. I shut myself up in my room with the excuse that I had to unpack.

I knew that I was trying to prolong something. However, night couldn't be put off.

As I pulled the comforter up I could already feel the nightmare coming on.

_I was at mixer for Fortune 500 companies when _He _approached me. "Hi, I'm Jacob Black. My father is the CEO of Amtrak." He was certainly up front. _

_"I'm Isabella." I told him, feeling strangely in superior to him. _

After that I actually fell asleep. It was a restless sleep, but it was better than the nightmares.


	5. Chapter 5

I have five reviews! Five! I've decided that until I get a minimum of fifteen reviews chapter six will not be posted. Seriously! Five! Speaking of which, thank you to haleyhoo, nbf4eva, and FRK921.

Colorguard championships are the day after tomorrow. Wish me luck!

I woke up the next morning like it was just a normal day, but then the memories of the previous day came rushing back to me. When I tried to convince myself that it was just a dream inside a dream, I felt the cast on my arm. Talk about a way to start off the day.

I walked into my bathroom. It was attached to my room so I never had to leave my sanctuary. I took a quick shower and blow dried my hair. I debated braiding a fishtail or curling. I knew what I was going to wear, so I curled it because it went better with the outfit.

As I was doing my hair I wondered if I ever really changed, or if I just got tired of pretending I was happy. I also wondered why you had to buy all of Barbie's friends when she was so popular.

I walked into my bedroom with a towel on and threw on an Alice + Olivia dress that I had bought from Bergdorf Goodman about a week earlier.

I strapped on a pair of gold Jimmy Choo pumps. I may have broken my arm the day before, but I was practically born in Versace; a broken arm wasn't going to stop me from wearing heels.

I walked downstairs and smelled something cooking. It smelled like pancakes and eggs. I thought that it was just the maids cooking, but a few steps further reviled that it was my "mother."

"Why hello." She said when I stepped onto the last stair. "How is your arm doing?" She asked with what seemed like real concern. I sat down at a barstool.

"Fine." I told her. I wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.

"You're up early." So much for my plan.

"So are you." I told her. I glanced at the clock; it was 5:30 AM.

"It must be the time change." She said. I could tell that she was not expecting my sarcastic comment. I could see that Dad had tried to tell her how screwed up I was but that she had not been expecting that degree of cynicism.

"I don't think so. I've flown Logan to LAX tons of times."

"Do you always wake up early?" She asked me.

"Yes. I takes about a half an hour to get to school what with the windy roads and snow and black ice and hale and things like that. Do you always wake up this early and cook breakfast?" I questioned her.

"Yes. I do this every morning."

"Doesn't that seem a little June Cleaver to you?"

"No. I don't do it because I feel like it's my job as a mother to cook for my family. I just enjoy cooking. Having a family is just convenient." She said as the placed a cup of apple juice in front of me.

"Apple juice?"

"I'm sorry. Do you not like apple juice?" She asked me.

"No. It's not that. Far from it actually. Apple juice is my favorite drink at breakfast. I was wondering how you knew that. I know for a fact that your phone conversations with Dad didn't go far past my food allergies and asthma."

"Apple juice is my favorite drink. I've never thought of it much. It's just instinct to give it to you. It figures that you like apple juice. It repulses Emmet and Alice. They prefer orange juice." We both pretended to gag at the same time. I laughed in my mind at the irony. "Want to try the sample pancake?"

She was already handing me a plate. "It's the first one. Sorry if it sucks."

A little while later Alice was sitting next to me. We were sitting at the table.

"I need to go shopping today. Do you want to come with me?" She said eagerly.

"Sure."

We were in her canary yellow Porsche twenty minutes later headed off to Saks Fifth Avenue. We pulled into the parking lot and began shopping. Alice was looking at shoes while I was looking through a dress rack. **(An* I'm sorry if the dress wrack thing isn't accurate. I know that a lot of high end stores like Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman don't have things like racks. I've never been inside of a Saks so I wouldn't know if they're set up like that. I'll have to ask my mom, that's one of her favorite stores…) **

I pulled dress from the rack that was my size so that I could try it on before I felt a cool breath on my neck. I jumped before I realized that it was Edward. "So is this your favorite store?" He enquired.

"No."

"So why are you shopping here?"

"It's the best. Now if you'll get out of my way, I see a pair of Gucci shoes that I must have missed in the catalogue." I lied.

"Jeez, is it right before that time of the month again?"

"No. I'm not PMSing, I just hate you." He bit his tongue trying to find another comeback that wasn't stupid.

"Why are you here in the first place?" I asked him while resuming my dress finding.

"Esme asked me to return something for her. She needed to get a smaller size."

I walked away from the dresses and told a dressing room assistant that I needed to try the dress on. Edward followed me and waited outside of the door. I changed and came out of the room. I asked for his opinion. I didn't think I was going to get it. The cat had his tongue. When he shut his mouth he stuttered and said, "You, you l-look g-great."

I smiled my first real smile in a long time.


	6. Chapter 6

**So I've decided that the whole "until I get 'this many reviews' thing" doesn't work as I only have ten. And because I hate chapters that are only author's notes I'm going to post this and come up with another creative way to get more reviews. And so, thank you to FRK921, nbf4eva, haleyhoo, silenceofthemoon, Dani-1811, Sara707-these are people who actually reviewed! Jk! So know I'll stay in my room and listen to Simon & Garfunkel songs wallowing in my own misery because I can't get anybody to review…**

The dream that prevented me from sleep that night was not pleasant, not that dreams like that ever were.

But I did have an aspect of hope because instead of being about Him, it was one of those things that required interpretation; one of those things that would be taken differently by different people.

Optimists would call it a sign, realists wouldn't give an interpretation, they would just call it a dream, and pessimists and cynics would call it an omen of a bad thing looming overhead like a raincloud.

_I was arguing with an unknown stranger. His head was faceless and his voice, his beautiful voice, was one that if I heard it in a movie it would tick me off because I couldn't recognize it and yet it sounded so familiar. _

_I was standing on a cliff, the type that you didn't want to come within twenty feet of because the view gave you an adrenaline rush because it was so far down. I was standing on the edge._

_Suddenly I just slipped and made no attempt to move. I seemed comfortable falling. I heard the gorgeous voiced stranger yell "Bella!" I heard him jump off of the edge after me as the ground turned into an abyss. I couldn't see the bottom. _

_The stranger turned into Edward. He caught up to me and he held me passionately, as we fell. It was the type of holding that lovers do. _

_"I love you." He whispered._

_"I love you, too." I whispered back. I was suddenly shocked by how true my words were. Despite the fact that we were falling to an almost certain death, we weren't screaming and we were able to talk incoherent sentences. I couldn't say anymore because I felt content with those three simple words. _

_The seemingly bottomless pit turned formed a ground as we whispered those words. I was prepared for death but as we hit the ground I didn't feel it. It was like we landed on a giant pile of cotton. _

_Edward didn't let go of me. We merely held onto each other as we gazed at the stars. They were bright, the type of brightness that you could only get in the Palm Springs area and New England on nights that weren't cloudy._

_"I love you." _

_"I love you, too."We whispered one more time to before we both fell asleep comfortably in each others loving arms._

That was when I woke up.

I was going to go back to sleep as a look at the clock revealed that it was 2:45 in the morning but as my head hit the pillow my head began swimming with thoughts that made it impossible.

When my aunt was eight and a half months pregnant last year I visited her. She was joking that it was very bad for her to wake up in the middle of the night to go pee- which she had to do often because she was pregnant- because the second she woke up the baby she was carrying woke up too and started going. After that she couldn't go back to bed.

I suddenly felt sympathy because I had a power that empaths would be insanely jealous of- I felt how she did.

But instead of there being a baby in my uterus who was giving me insomnia my brain started thinking the thoughts of a psychologist. _Well what does this mean? Have you met him only twice and you've already fallen in love with him? Do you have a secret fear of heights? Are you in love with only the idea of being in love?_

I decided on the last one. I wasn't in love with Edward, I told myself, I thought I was and my subconscious had convinced me that I was to the point that I believed it. I fell back into a restless sleep for and hour and ten minutes while telling myself that I didn't love him.

I woke again at four A.M. There was no chance of falling to sleep again. I decided to go for a jog. I grabbed my IPOD, a water bottle. I brushed my hair and put it into a ponytail. I brushed my teeth and put on shorts and a sports bra. I threw on some tennis shoes.

I walked out of the front door and ran down my street. I still didn't know the streets very well, even after the excursion the day before. I decided to explore.

I was running past the high school that I assumed I would be attending in the fall. It was currently the middle of June. Somebody bumped into me. I was about to fall to the ground when someone said, "Oh no you don't." It was Edward. He caught me before I became friends with the ground once more.

"Are you trying to break the other arm?" He asked with a joking tone.

"No. I just think that this town hates me and put a curse on me." I said equally as jokingly. I was not, by any means, smiling though. I said it facetiously.

"So where were you headed to?" He asked, trying to make small talk.

"I have no idea. I was just running along, trying to figure the city out." I replied.

"Well, how much have you run already?" I could tell he was about to make a proposal of some sort.

"Three miles." I told him.

"Wow. Well, that has to be enough for today. Why don't we head home and get showered and ready and I'll come pick you up and show you the town."

"Sure."

"Wait, may I have your phone number?" He said as I was about to turn around.

I gave him my phone number he gave me his. I ran the three miles back home very quickly.

After showering I had no idea as to where we'd be going, and therefore how to dress. I decided to text him.

_**What should I wear?**_

__**Jeans and a t-shirt.**

_**Actually, I don't own any jeans…. Or t-shirts.**_

__**Oh my. This calls for an intervention. Wear whatever you want, we're going to the mall.**

I wondered why he was so shocked that I didn't own any pairs of jeans. It wasn't that I thought that they were beneath me; it was just that I didn't grow up in a house where my dad would see what I was wearing and go "Bella, you need more blue jeans."

I grew up in the house where my dad would call a personal shopper to take me to Barney's and when they rang everything up I merely told them to put it on the tab.

It wasn't like I'd never worn a pair of jeans in my life. I'd worn them when I was a baby and a toddler. My dad always used to brag about how cute I looked in them when we would go through old photo albums.

When I was done with my pointless thinking I threw on a dress from Bergdorf Goodman. He'd be happy though, it was a sundress, nothing too fancy.

He picked me up about twenty-five minutes after I threw on my dress. When I slid into his passenger seat I saw him slightly in awe, but after that he didn't make any direct stares of affection. He made them much more subtle.

For example whenever he told me to look out the window to stare at some weird landmark or something like that I could feel his eyes on me. I almost just wanted to yell at him to just stare at me when I could see the green of his eyes.

We pulled up to the mall and walked straight into Neiman Marcus. He walked me over to a bunch of jeans. "What size are you?" He asked. I looked at him bewildered.

"Two." I answered. I was too shocked to asked why he needed to know.

Without another word he shoved a bunch of jeans into my hands and ushered me to the fitting rooms. He sat on a chair in the fitting rooms.

I put on one of the jeans and walked out to show him. "They're a bit to long, but we can get those tailored. Next pair."

"Are you gay?!" I asked him.

"No." He chuckled.

"Then how the hell do you know all of this about clothes and how come this doesn't bore you to tears?!"

"When your parents are best friends with Alice's parents and you are always stuck with her and Emmet for play dates you pick up on a few things." That explained it.

**Come on, you know you want to… Just press the pretty little "Review" button…**


	7. Chapter 7

I woke up at four A.M. the next morning and decided to text Edward. I knew that he would already be up.

**So what are you kidnapping me to do today?**

**Well, there's a new sushi bar down town, do you want to go there for lunch with me?**

**Sure**

**Great, I'll pick you up at twelve**

**Wait, what am I supposed to do for the next eight hours?**

**Take a shower, get dressed, you're a girl so that will take, what, and hour and a half, go eat breakfast, go to Alice's room, she'll entertain you.**

I decided to go get dressed. I took a shower and curled my hair after I blow dried it.

I threw on a pair of jeans from the day before with Edward. I put on a button down blouse that I had already previously owned because it matched a skirt that I owned. It was now about six o'clock. I went downstairs hoping that there would be some sort of breakfast waiting.

Sure enough, there was. Alice and Emmet were sitting with Rosalie and Jasper at the table while my "mother" was by the sink doing something; I couldn't tell what it was.

"Howdy," was the first thing I said when I walked down the stairs.

"Hey Bella," Rosalie said.

I was by the counter now and my "mother" just automatically handed me a plate. "Thank you." I told her as I walked by to sit at the dining room table. I looked down and saw French toast and fruit. When I sat down she walked by and handed me a cup of apple juice. She came and sat down beside me with her plate of food.

"So what's everybody doing today?" She asked. It went around in a circle; I couldn't help but feel like this was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

"Rose and I are driving up to LA to go look at UCLA. We've already looked at USC so we're just viewing the campus to see which one we're going to in the fall."

"I'm going shopping!" Alice chirped. I swore that I heard my "mother" mutter "As usual." She looked at Jasper. "I'm going with Alice." He said softly with his voice saturated with love. My "mother" smiled, as if she really approved of him and liked him. She looked at me.

"I'm going to the new sushi bar downtown with Edward at noon. I don't know what else we're doing. We'll figure something out. She nodded like she understood. We all heard a noise and looked out the window.

"My cars are here!!! Yay!!" I jumped up from my seat and ran to go to the trucker dude. Fifteen minutes later my cars were in the driveway. I ran my fingers over the familiar wood inlays.

I walked into my bedroom and plopped down onto the now familiar bed. I heard Alice walk downstairs with Jasper. I heard the garage door open and I heard her drive away. Five minutes later I heard Emmet and Rosalie do the same thing.

Phil had left for training the day after I came, so it looked like I was going to spend some quality time with my "mother."

I walked downstairs and contemplated just staying upstairs for four hours, but I had to ask her something. "Why did you leave?" I blurted when I saw her on the couch watching _House, M.D._

She turned her head and made a motion as if to invite me to sit next to her on the couch. I sat on the loveseat instead. "I figured I was going to get this question soon." She said with a kind of all-knowing smile. "I left because I felt that I was tying your father down."

"Don't give me that crap. Tell me the truth." I told her. I was slightly annoyed and ticked off that she answered in the way that would make her sound like a selfless, caring person.

"It's the truth. We were broke and I didn't like it. I didn't like not knowing how we were going to feed ourselves. Your father had no incentive to go out and start making money; he was happy were we were. So, I concocted a plan to leave with you so that he would start making money and then go back to him. When I left I had you in my arms, but your father begged me to let you stay. I couldn't say no. Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did. I made a scrapbook filled with pictures of you up until I left. It's in the linen closet if you want to look at it." I could tell she was on the verge of tears; I was too.

"Why didn't you ever comeback?" I asked.

"Your father didn't want me back. When you were about a year and a half I flew back to Massachusetts with a one way ticket and tried to tell him the truth. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want me back."

"What about me?" I asked. I almost didn't want to know the truth.

"He told me that he put you up for adoption. I swear to God it was the worst moment of my life. I spent years trying to find you in the adoption system. That's how I found Alice and Emmet. I finally just decided that you had been adopted already. That was the other worst moment of my life. I didn't know where you were until about two months ago when your father called." She was bawling now.

"I missed out on my daughter's life. Some of the most important parts, I missed out on. I haven't held my daughter in sixteen years and eleven months. **(I'm aware that the dates are totally off for that; her birthday is still September 13, I just was an idiot when I first wrote that and didn't do the math. So, time to break out the creative license.) **

"What's the worst part of it all?" I inquired. I almost didn't want to know.

"The shoulda, coulda, woulda part of it all. Shoulda, coulda, woulda are the saddest words in the entire English language. Everybody says that you should always just forget your mistakes and live life to its fullest. But how am I supposed to forget the fact that I virtually ignored the life of the one person who's supposed to mean the most to me? I will never forgive myself for leaving. I can't, I just can't."

And then, me, the hard ass, stubborn, jaded girl started crying. "It's okay Mom, you can hold me now." I told her as I stood up and sat down next to her on the couch. I gave her a hug. She hugged back and it was one of those hugs that only a mom can give. The hug that makes it feel like everyone in the entire world is alright and that all of the lights in the world just shined a bit brighter.

I had never had such a hug, but even as I experienced my first mom-hug I knew that that was what a hug really was. "So, tell me about yourself." She said with a kind of laugh.

"Like?" I probed.

"Everything. I'm your mother, I'm supposed to know everything that even nobody else does."

"Lets play it like a game of twenty questions. You ask a question and I answer then I do the same." She nodded. "You go first."

I told her of the many places I had been, and the many places I still had yet to go, I told her of mediocre things such as my favorite color and favorite book and even silly funny things that only a mom knows, like my favorite tampon brand. "I'll have to mark that down for grocery shopping." She joked after I answered.

I heard a knock on the door and knew instantly that it was Edward. I answered it and he looked concerned when he saw my red, puffy face. He looked at my moms face and then promptly said, "Am I interrupting something?" I smiled.

"No, just a chick moment. Come on in." I told him. He took one step in and then pretended to be taken back. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, just overwhelmed with all of the estrogen." He joked. "Shall we get going?"

"We shall." I said.

**So don't worry, Bella is still not okay. She may have made up with her mother but the story still has a long way to go. I didn't even realize that Phil wasn't in the story until about twenty minutes ago so I figured that training was a good way for that to make sense. Thank you to everybody who is reviewing!! Reviews totally make me happy despite the fact that I've only gotten 16 of them. As you read in earlier a/ns I've decided that I don't like that ransom reviews things and as a result I won't be using them but remember, reviews make me write faster!!! I have a new one-shot out called "Ungodly Hour." Go check it out! You may want to bring the tissues. **


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